Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:Современная литература Великобритании и США. Учебно-методическое пособие
.pdf
psychology of mysterious crimes that take place in a setting close
to the traditional “Gothic” novel.
A special place in the history of modern English literature
is occupied by the works of Angus Wilson, Angela Carter,
Emma Tennant, and partly by Iris Murdoch. In them, the real
organically interacts with the unexpected and inexplicable,
dreams, fairy tales or myths get along with the everyday actions
of people. Often the narrative turns into a kind of mosaic,
a kaleidoscope that reproduces a complex pattern of different
ways of perceiving reality. This artistic method has led some
critics to talk about the existence of English «magical realism»,
expressed in the works of the above-mentioned writers.
Critics attributed various works to the streamline of “magical
realism». For the English «magical realists», literature is
a transcendental source that sanctifies reality. The titles of the
novels by Angela Carter (1940–1992) are quite indicative in
this respect: “The Magic Toyshop” (1967), “Heroes and Villains”
(1969), “The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman”
(1972), “Nights at the Circus” (1984). The works of mainly
European literature are used by “magical realists” as a kind of
“folklore of educated people”. Literary allusion is perceived in
their works as a reference to the general fund of knowledge.
The first novels of Muriel Spark (1918–2006) – “Memento
mori” (1959) and
“The Bachelors” (1969) – pointed to the emergence of
a writer with a witty and paradoxical style. The works of the
writer, denouncing avarice, lack of spirituality, hypocrisy and
sanctimony, attracted the favorable attention of Evelyn Waugh
at the time. In Spark’s novels, many things that happen in reality
do not get a rational explanation. In the novel “The Hothouse
by the East River” (1973), the distance between the real and
the illusory is deliberately emphasized. The main characters
are the inhabitants of New York in the early 1970s, which is
dominated by the principle of “interesting and real everything
that causes pain”. Spouses Elsa and Paul are participants of
the anti-fascist struggle. But the content of the novel is the
endless showdown between the couple and the former German
prisoner of war Helmut Kiel. Paul wonders if Elsa was Kiel’s
11
mistress. The denouement of the novel is extremely unexpected.
The characters, it turns out, were killed by a bomb that fell on
London in 1944, and the reader is introduced to their seemingly
alternative, unrealized fates. In the novel “Not to Disturb”
(1971), the entire series of plot events has already occurred in
the minds of the characters before the beginning of the story.
The servants working in the castle of a Swiss baron anticipate
the suicide of their masters. According to a pre-conceived plan,
the photographs and memoirs of the host and hostess, as well as
their secretary, who was in a difficult relationship with them,
should be sold to the press. An extremely caustic satirical picture
of the life of a Catholic monastery is given in the novel “Abbess
of Crewe” (1974). Abbess Alexandra uses electronic listening
and tape recordings to assert her authority, talking about the
purity of the soul and grace. Topical events of our time become
the subject of two other novels of the writer – “The Takeover”
(1976) and “Territorial Rights” (1979). In autobiographical
novel “Loitering with Intent” (1981), the heroine of which Fleur
Talbot in many ways resembles Spark herself. It is constantly
searching for a state in which a person can experience the allencompassing fullness of life. In this work, Spark formulates
her views on artistic creativity, raises important issues of
writing skills.
The motifs of the works of another famous English writer,
Margaret Drabble (born 1939), echo the work of Muriel Spark.
It is characterized by a critical view of fashion trends in the
public consciousness. In the early works of M. Drabble, clearly
sounding intonations reflect the moods of a young intelligent
woman who comes into conflict with society and with the older
generation. Her prose focuses on the analysis of the ethical
problems of modern England. In the novel “The Needle’s Eye”
(1972), the heroine Roz Vassiliou chooses “the way down” (unlike
most “the angry young men” of the 1950s). In an effort to get rid
of the fetters of a rich, well-to-do family, she goes on a clearly
failed revolt. But the struggle enriches the heroine spiritually. In
contrast to “The Millstone” (1965) and “Jerusalem the Golden”
(1967), the novel “The Ice Age” (1977) provides broad social
sketches of the spiritual crisis in modern England.
12
Margaret Drabble’s “The Radiant Way” (1987) was
characterized by critics as the most virtuosic work of the writer.
The action takes place in the 1980s in New York at a party
hosted by a psychotherapist Liz Hedland. Liz is celebrating an
anniversary of her marriage to Charles, a television producer
with whom she has been married for more than twenty years.
The gap between the measured philistine existence and the
hostility of the surrounding social environment is exposed in
the final of the novel. During Liz’s dinner with friends, the
police surround the house, intending to arrest the lawbreaker
who is holed up on the top floor. Some of the guests curse the
representatives of the law, calling them “incompetent fools”,
others are ready to help the police. During the incident,
different points of view on public issues are revealed. Despite
a certain intonation incontinence, M. Drabble is a sufficiently
subtle moralist to argue that all social disasters are the result
of excessive freedom, constantly claimed by people. That is the
freedom to live in their own way, according to the standards
that a person chooses for himself and the freedom to fight
against these standards.
The difference between points of view emphasizes the moral
issues of the novel, which tells about the power of friendship and
other sincere human feelings. The attractive side of the work
is the masterly possession of details: the nature and behaviour
of people are described by Drabble with the same degree of
truthfulness aa well as fascination. At the same time, this work
is angry, gloomy, and pessimistic. The writer is concerned with
questions about human duty, which is often muted by the power
of violence and selfishness. The author’s puritanism comes into
conflict with the “new” individualism inherent in the powerful
of this world, among whom there is a disregard for everything
authentic that should bind people together.
In recent decades, the work of Martin Amis (born 1949), whose
early works combined verbal virtuosity and an immature desire
for outrage, has attracted attention of critics. Amis’s fourth
novel, “Other People” (1981), became famous. The narrative
in this work conveys many comical features of modern life as if
through a curved magnifying glass. The characteristics of people
13
in this case are quite emblematic. The world, recreated by Amis,
echoes the atmosphere of “Difficult Times” by Ch. Dickens.
The action of another, by far the most significant work of
the writer, the novel “Money” (1984) is takes place in London
and New York. The style of the work is peculiar, partly oldfashioned redundant resembling Dickensian condensed one.
At the same time, the author manages carry out a truly deep
moral introspection. For the first time in English literature, it
is possible to reveal the metaphysical role of wealth and money
in modern society. Money in Amis’s novel begins to live a life
of its own. The people in this work have money without having
it in their hands. They go out on the street with fantastic,
invented money, buy the first thing that comes to their mind.
In this atmosphere lives and acts the hero John Self. This name
and the very image of the hero echoes the image of Humphrey
Chimpden Earwicker, the «man in general» from the J. Joyce’s
novel “Finnenags Wake”. The author immerses the reader in
a metaphorical environment, overflowed with McDonald’s
garbage – the pillars of “garbage civilization”.
Amis’s style of demonstrates the desire of many English writers
not to succumb to the exquisite temptation of postmodern poetics,
to look for new, rather inventive ways of realistic representation
of life. The author strives for a truthful understanding of reality,
thanks to which bright, sometimes shocking symptoms of the
morbidity and ugliness of modern urban civilization fall into his
field of vision. At the same time, Martin Amis, as a true master of
prose, tries to objectively reproduce reality not only in a negative
light. Descriptions of rare moments of life beauty allow him to
achieve objectivity of the world images.
An example of creative interpretation and revision of
traditional mythological subjects are the works of Julian Barnes
(born 1946). A Russian reader knows him, first of all, by the
novels “Flaubert’s Parrot” (1984) and “A History of the World
in 10½ Chapters” (1989). A vivid image of a young man – a typical
representative of the 1960s – is drawn in the novel “Metroland”
(1980). The novels of Graham Swift (born 1949), including the
Russian translation of “Waterland” (1983) and “Last Orders”
(1996), attract attention with a complex moral and philosophical
14
life view. Swift is a brilliant writer, prone to subtle psychological
analysis and broad philosophical generalizations, which is
noticeable in his other novels – “The Sweet-Shop Owner” (1980),
“Shuttlecock” (1981), “Out of this World” (1988), “Ever After”
(1992). Ian McEwen (born 1948) became widely known after the
publication of the novel “Amsterdam” which won the prestigious
Booker Prize. This literary work recreates the picture of the
reflective consciousness of two intellectuals – a composer and
a publisher who lost the woman with whom they were both in love
in their youth. The work of David Lodge, another contemporary
English author, echoes with the university novels of «the angry
young men», continuing the tradition of academic life stories.
Lodge’s novel “Nice Work” is a satirical guide to Thatcherist
Britain.
The widely known novel by Malcolm Bradbury (1932–1998)
“Doctor Criminale” (1992) shows a peculiar panorama of the
political and literary life of the late twentieth century. The hero
of the novel, the journalist and literary critic Francis Jay –
a pragmatist and philosopher at the same time overcome by
earthly passions –falls into the maelstrom of phantasmagoric
events in the cultural life of Europe, sometimes balancing on
the verge of dissolving into the pseudo-intellectual atmosphere
that accompanies the modern literary “party”. Hunting for an
interview with the “greatest philologist and writer of the century”,
Doctor Criminale – a figure not devoid of mystical touches –
Francis goes through the stages of a kind of picaresque catharsis,
through which the personal values of the hero are verified.
“Doctor Criminale” largely debunks a lot of theoretical quirks and
myths that accompany the imaginary philological scholarship and
literary journey-work and do not stand the test of real life.
Novelist, short story writer and literary critic Antonia Byatt
(born 1936) – depicts the British reality from the 1950s to the
present time. Her well-known works as “The Shadows of the Sun”
(1964), “The Game” (1967), “The Virginin the Garden” (1978),
“Still Life” (1986), “Possession” (1990), “Angels and Insects”
(1992), “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” (1994), are full of
historical and literary allusions and contain deep discussions
about literature and art.
15
In recent decades, a circle of talented prose writers has
appeared in English literature, who, although not of English
origin, make a significant contribution to the creation of the
history of literature within rather conventional boundaries of the
English-speaking «literary continent». The work of these writers
matures in the process of multicultural mixing, which is caused
by the so-called «reactive colonization» of Great Britain after the
World War II, as a result of which many descendants of former
colonized peoples settled and assimilated in the “foggy Albion”.
These “New Englishmen” imbibe traditional British culture,
which is superimposed on their natural and cultural archetypes.
This is manifested on different levels of the creative process,
primarily in the phenomenon of hybridization of their literary
texts, which are quite clearly distinguished from the works of
traditional British writers.
Salman Rushdie (born 1947) is constantly teetering on the
edge of literature and politics. The writer perfectly mastered
the skill of «multi-layered» writing, combining the polyphony of
multicultural discourses, which is shown in his novels “Midnight
Children” (1981), “Shame” (1983), “The Satanic Verses” (1988).
The plot of the novel “The Moor’s Last Sigh” (1995) is based on
a dialogue (in this case – on a polylogue) of Eastern and European
cultures – Indian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Jewish. The
multicultural family tree, symbolizing the roots of the novel’s
characters, determines the fate of historically semi-real heroes,
whose ancestors represented different peoples and races. Some
ideal lands, created in the creative imagination of the heroine of
the work Aurora Zogoibi, are called “Mauristan” (Mauritania and
Pakistan) and “Palimpstina” (Palestine and palimpsest). These
hybrid names become a symbol of the multicultural history of the
“golden age” of mankind, when carriers of different cultures and
religions got along within small territories and cities.
A motley picture in relation to artistic methods, plots and
figurative range, and the analyzed problems is also observed
within the circle of a younger generation of English-speaking
writers.
The author Timothy Mo (born 1950), a Chinese by origin
living in England is often called “a singer of two empires” – the
16
Chinese and the British. The epic scope of the narrative in his
novel “The Monkey King” enriched with comic detail reproduces
a clear picture of Hong Kong society, which is viewed in a double
focus – from the point of view of both the Chinese and British
experience. The ability of the “Anglo-Chinese” writer to see
and portray the authentic at the intersection of “indigenous”
and “alien” embodies the convergence of ancient traditions and
accelerating modern processes. The life of a simple Chinese
family enraged by emigration is portrayed against the backdrop
of London’s Chinatown in the other popular Mo’s novel ”Sour
Sweet”. At the center of the story is the Chen family, which
is tested for strength by both gangster mafia triads and the
whims of unpredictable Englishmen. Vikram Seth (born 1952),
a native of India, an Oxford man by education, and the author
of the acclaimed novel “A Suitable Boy”, the largest work of
fiction in recent decades, is also placed in the same context with
Timothy Mo.
There are quite new names of young writers who took
their first breath on British soil and organically absorbed the
English reality from the moment of birth. British writer with
African roots Courttia Newland (born 1973) analyzes the life
of the western suburbs of London in his novel “The Scholar” in
a fresh and deep way. The writer introduces a new type of hero
nicknamed “Scholar” who becomes a “picaro” (or a slyboots) in
the novel – the embodiment of the author’s omniscience and at
the same time a bold challenge to outdated stereotypes about
the world of criminals and vagabonds, who appear before us in
the form of living people with their true thoughts, feelings, and
desire for change.
The works of Egyptian Ahdaf Soueif (born 1950), a graduate of
Lancaster University, are painted with a peculiar national colour.
She considers herself an Egyptian writer, and so far the love of her
first homeland is taking over. This distinguishes a young Egyptian
woman with a British education from other authors who are
trying to rise “above the fray”, that is, above national preferences.
Nevertheless, her novels “In the Eye of the Sun” and “Sandpiper”
are addressed directly to the Western reader, which allows us to
call Adaf Suif an “Anglo-Egyptian writer”.
17
The novel “Transmission”, written by Atima Srivastava,
(born 1961), an English writer of Indian descent, received
a wide response in the press – more than 40 newspaper and
magazine reviews. Her work is included in the programmes of six
universities in the UK and Spain.
The global vision, the desire for universal coverage of problems,
philosophical, national, ethical, becomes a characteristic
feature of some literary newcomers. An example is the novel
“Cyrus Cyrus”, written by the Pakistani-born Adam Zaminzad
(1937–2017). “Cyrus Cyrus” is a work of outstanding ingenuity,
a satirical pastiche that mixes good and evil on an ethical palette.
The novel is consistently unfolds in India, California, and London,
and the genre resembles an anthology of fairy tales about death
and the afterlife, sex and survival, about the essence of madness
and genius, reflected in the dark maelstrom of consciousness of
a certain Cyrus Cyrus – according to the author “one of the most
outstanding people of this century”.
There are precedents for the “invasion” of British prose and
immigrants from the countries of the former “eastern bloc”. Tibor
Fischer (born 1959), his father and mother, being professional
basketball players of the Hungarian national team, emigrated to
England in 1956, was born in England and graduated from the
University of Cambridge. Tibor Fischer’s novel “Under the Frog”
(meaning the Hungarian idiom “under the frog’s ass in the depths
of a terrible mine”, which means “life is worse than ever”) was the
first debut novel to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Despite
the rather narrow, “Hungarian” theme of “The Frogs”, Fischer
managed to rise to broad generalizations expressed in English,
which allowed him to be included in the list of “The best Young
Novelists of Great Britain in 1993”, compiled by the literary and
art magazine “Granta”. The Russian reader knows Fischer from
the novel “The Collector Collector” – a witty novel in which the
narrative is conducted on behalf of an old bowl.
Within the circle of “alien” writers, there are serious trends
that can be called attempts of self-discovery and self-exploration
by English-speaking migrant writers. Thus, native of Guyana,
David Dabidin (born 1955), in addition to fiction, created
a reference book “British writers of West Indian and African
18
descent” (1988). A native of Trinidad, Caryl Phillips (born
1958), tried to collect an anthology of works by authors who were
born outside of the UK in a curious book called “Extravagant
Strangers: A Literature of Belonging”.
The work of the English writer of Japanese origin Kazuo
Ishiguro (born 1954) is an example of the fusion of the cultural
worldview of the West and the East. The author, who has lived
in England since the age of six, created one of the “most English”
novels of the late twentieth century, like Joseph Conrad and
Vladimir Nabokov, perfectly mastering the art of the word of
another country. Ishiguro’s book “The Remains of the Day” was
awarded the Booker Prize in 1989 and nominated the writer
among the leading English prose writers. “The Remains of
the Day” is the story in the form of a monologue of the butler
Stevens, who tells about betrayal of his bright ideals, his love.
Stevens’s life is distorted as a result of servility towards his
master, who on the eve of the World War II represented the
interests of the circles of English society that sympathized with
Hitler. The butler, who is taken for an aristocrat by others in
one of the situations, eventually begins to play this role himself.
All this makes us think about the system of virtuoso hypocrisy
within English society, which, being divided into rigid castes,
forces people to constantly impersonate others. Ishiguro’s
other novel, “A Pale View of the Hills” (1982), explores the
relationship between the devastating effects of war and a person
unable to come to terms with the past. In the novel “An Artist
of the Floating World” (1986), the writer turns to the story
of a Japanese artist who tries to comprehend the origins of the
historical development in his native country, which selflessly
went to disaster on the eve of World War II.
In the novel “The Buddha of Suburbia” (1991) by the modern
British writer Hanif Kureishi (born 1954), the story is told on
behalf of a teenager Karim, whose fate is in many ways similar to
the life of the author himself. Karim was born on the outskirts of
London to a family of an Indian father and an English mother, and
is forced to live in an internal crisis of his national and cultural
identity. This is a new type of picaro hero, he has his own “way
up”. But it becomes clear that the adventures of the “stranger”
19
Karim in London, and the adventures of Joe Lampton from the
novel of J. Brain are vivid episodes in the lives of people belonging
to different eras, having different social, moral and psychological
problems. Nevertheless both authors – Kureishi and Brain –are
to refer to the broad concept of “modern English literature”. In
modern English literature, another novel by H. Kureishi, “The
Black Album” (1995), also took a prominent place.
In the interaction of different literatures, languages, and
cultural discourses, many problems are not limited only to the
comparison of the West and the East. A vivid proof of this is the
work of Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932–2018), an AngloTrinidadian writer of Indian origin. In 2001 Naipaul won the
Nobel Prize. An Indian person in Naipaul’s works is inevitably
and unnaturally Eurocentric. The European is eclectic and
unpredictable in an oriental way. In the novel “Mr Stone and the
Knights Companion”, the outlook of the English hero is totally
influenced by the illusory element of religious myth inherent
in the Hindu worldview. In the introduction to the novel “The
Mystic Masseur”, Naipaul attempts to explain the extent of the
territory and describe the composition of the population of the
island of Trinidad, with reference to Lancashire and Nottingham.
“Home for Mr. Biswas” (1961) is a novel by Naipaul written
in rich, generous colors, humorous, satirical, and pathetic
at the same time, created in the tradition of English prose.
Naipaul paints the life story of three generations of an Indian
family, which is interpreted through the perception of Mogun
Biswas – an artistic person, although he can only express himself
in two ways: he writes shop signs and serves as a reporter for
a local newspaper. Perhaps the best way to imagine what Naipaul
achieved in this novel, what his artistic power lies in, is to
imagine what kind of novel H.G. Wells would have written if he
were a young man of Asian descent, born in Trinidad fifty years
ago. For “Home for Mr. Biswas” is a Caribbean “Kipps” or “The
History of Mr. Polly”, as one of the authoritative reviewers of
the novel, W. Allen, observed1.
1
Аллен У. Постскриптум к «Традиции и мечте» // Иностранная ли-
тература. 1977. № 2. С. 208.
20
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]